Page 246 of The Crown's Awakening
"No," he agrees pleasantly. "You wouldn't."
He is quiet for a moment, looking ahead at the pass, and then he begins.
"A long time ago there was a country called Urasal. Below the surface." He glances at me. "It had creatures and beings of considerable power. We lived peacefully, though we often intervened in matters above the surface where we had no business intervening." A pause. "I was born a Keeper. It is what I am. Keepers are guardians and sentinels for the young."
"Whose young?"
"A ruler's." He says it simply. "We are constantly at their side. We have a connection, an ability to sense when danger is near. We are not loyal to their realm or even their parents." He looks at me directly. "Only to them."
"And when they reach adulthood?"
"The role never changes."
I think about that. "What about the one you kept before?"
Something moves through his expression. "They never came into fruition," he says. "For years we were without a ruler. Keepers are trained from youth and then the young ruler ultimately chooses us themselves."
He is quiet for a moment. "A Keeper without a kept is not quite whole," he says. "The power is there but it has nowhere to go. It is like carrying something with no one to give it to." He looks ahead. "It is not painful exactly. It is simply...incomplete."
"How do you know they choose you?"
"A marking appears." He holds out his palm briefly. "If it matches, it is destiny."
I look at his hand and then back at the path ahead. "What happened to Urasal?"
He draws in a slow breath. "Rumors of Morrath and its growing strength began to circulate. Urasal has always been a hybrid of creatures and beasts and beings. One of them, a creature called Flagsar, had a strong calling. He became convinced that the future princess was inside Morrath. That he must go there and wait for her. That she would bring power both above and below the surface."
I frown. "I thought only feeders can pass through Morrath."
Kentan nods. "This is true. But if you are a Keeper, you are an extension of that ruler. In theory, if his princess was intended to be his kept, he would have been able to enter as an extension of her." He pauses. "Even if she was not yet born."
I raise an eyebrow but say nothing.
"What happened to everyone else?" I ask.
"I do not know for certain," he says. "Only that Flagsar felt this calling, and that many of a creature nature chose to follow him. Not only for the princess but for the promise of..." He clears his throat. "Plentiful food."
"Food?"
"They have a similar diet to feeders," he says, without apology. "And it is no secret that the King of Yorali feeds the pits of Morrath with humans he has used dark magic on. Similar to what we saw today on the road."
I am quiet for a moment. "And they just went."
"They decided to go and called their new country Umbrelai," he says. "Those left in Urasal are peaceful. I am the only Keeper remaining, and the closest thing to a ruler, though in truth I do not do much. It is a world not dissimilar to this one, only withmore magic and, now that the creatures are gone, considerably less...dark.”
He clears his throat again. "I went to save the children when I saw the mages coming toward them. I aimed to fight the mages off, but Urasal kept calling. So I lifted them and closed my eyes and we were there."
"It was beautiful," Cambra breathes from behind us. I had not realized she was listening.
Kentan looks at me then. He opens Ari's small hand first, then Kiss's.
I look down.
A faint marking traces each of their palms, delicate and unmistakable.
"They each bear the marking," he says quietly. “Yours are not the same,” he adds, his eyes lifting to mine. “Theirs bind me to them. Yours give you passage to where they are.”
I close my eyes for a moment. "I do not know what this means," I say. "Nor do I have the ability to learn it right now."
